John Mulqueen: John Mulqueen, who has died aged 70, made a huge contribution, during a professional career spanning almost 50 years, to the agricultural and infrastructural development of Ireland through his pioneering soil science expertise while working in An Foras Talúntais (AFT), in Teagasc and at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
He advised on hundreds of successful projects around Ireland. Major developments to which he contributed his unique expertise include Semple and Pearse GAA stadiums, Punchestown and Galway race courses, Lahinch and Enniscrone golf courses, Arcon and Ivernia mines, the Ballinamore-Ballyconnell Canal and the Mulcaire river drainage scheme.
He brought the same expertise and commitment to the development of village playing fields and golf courses so that people could play their games of all codes throughout the year. He did this community work mostly in the evenings and on Saturdays, often far from home and at his own expense.
In many small towns and villages it was a joy and inspiration to see the great welcome he received because of a small farm or local community field he had helped to develop or improve in the past.
John Mulqueen grew up on a farm near Kilrush in west Clare and attended the local CBS schools. At an early age he read advanced text books in geography and mathematics. He won a scholarship to study agricultural science at UCD and shortly after graduating in 1957 took up a post at the AFT blanket peat research station at Glenamoy, Co Mayo.
Within a short time, John and his colleagues established the nutritional requirements of an amazing range of crops, herbs, shrubs and trees on the virtually sterile blanket peat, and some of his findings remain the standard advice to this day.
After spending three years at Glenamoy, he took up the post of acting station manager at the AFT peatland research station in Lullymore, Co Kildare, where his team pioneered protocols for the production of grass and other crops on cutover peatland.
In 1965 he was appointed officer-in-charge at the AFT research station in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, where he managed the programmes of researchers working on all aspects of farming on heavy wet clay soils.
In September 1968 he won a WK Kellogg Foundation scholarship to study soil physics under the world-renowned Prof Don Kirkham at Iowa State University, where he acquired a fundamental understanding of water movement in soil that enabled him to analyse and develop solutions to drainage problems in Ireland.
On his return he started work on the economical and practical drainage of the heavy wet soils, which culminated in the development of the gravel-filled mole drain plough. This was the first major advance on the original mole plough invented by John Fowler in 1851. He then proceeded to apply this and other drainage technologies for the benefit of farmers and community groups.
At Ballinamore he established strong links with researchers and developers in the North. He invented a natural grass sand-based, all-weather playing pitch with Joe Prunty of Fermanagh, which is now a standard playing surface for a number of different field game codes throughout Ireland.
In 1977 he was appointed officer-in-charge at Creagh, Ballinrobe, where he combined a demanding management role with his hectic research work on land reclamation. From 1983 John began working with Dr Michael Rodgers of NUI Galway on national and international projects involving soil mechanics in agriculture, forestry, national road developments and wastewater treatment.
In 1989 he moved to the civil engineering department at NUI Galway. Free of administrative duties, he found a new energy in university life. His research studies on erosion in the west of Ireland won the award for the most distinguished paper at the International Erosion Control Association conference in Las Vegas in 2001, attended by 2,500 delegates from around the world.
His pioneering research work on water, nitrogen and phosphorus movement through soils - so relevant in Ireland today - is published in more than 70 scientific papers in leading international peer-reviewed journals. He was a principal author of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) books on wastewater treatment systems and on works on drainage published by the Council for Forest Research and Development (Coford). These books have been reprinted many times and are now used in developments throughout the country.
He was a key member of a 15-member soil mechanics and environmental engineering research team at NUI Galway and played a pivotal role in winning substantial research contracts from national and international funding agencies that include Teagasc, Coford, Coillte Teo, Enterprise Ireland, the EPA, the EU and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. He has three patents on drainage and wastewater treatment filed in his name.
At his office door in NUI Galway there was a steady stream of people from all walks of life seeking advice and information. He greatly influenced undergraduates and more than 50 graduate students and visiting researchers from Ireland, China, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Pakistan, Poland, Spain and the US in the soil mechanics and environmental engineering laboratories. He and his wife, Rose, hosted many of these students, at their beautiful home in Tourmakeady, on the shores of Lough Mask.
A prolific worker, John was disciplined and rigorous in everything he did. He carefully consulted all sources of relevant information before he accepted or rejected a hypo-thesis. He was not afraid to stand alone on an issue once he had completed his research and established his sapiential authority. He was not easily deceived, if ever.
His social skills made for most enjoyable company, and his apparently limitless fount of knowledge and stories - always with a lesson - were shared with everybody. He had a rare memory for poetry and liked to recite the longer ballads of Robert Service.
His work throughout Ireland is an enduring legacy to his memory.
His wife, Rose (née Neary), and daughters, Suzanne, Yvonne, Maureen, Grace, Clare, Clodagh and Joan, survive him.
John Mulqueen: born June 11th, 1935; died February 4th, 2006.